Friday

With the current economy, it’s important for job-seekers to stand out if they want to land a job, whether that’s in the corporate world or a freelance gig. The good news is that if you’re a creative-type, there’s a ton you can do with your resume that will set you apart.

The key in creating a great resume is to make it unique. Your resume should reflect you: your skills, your personality, and your experience. Combining those in a way that will catch the eye of whoever is in charge of hiring is what this article will teach you!

You may be interested in the following related articles as well.

The Benefits of a More Creative Resume

With high unemployment rates and a lagging economy, the job market is tough. There are a lot more people than there are jobs. And even when the economy is good, the best jobs still have a lot of competition. And freelancers are always competing for the best clients and the most lucrative projects, regardless of the economic situation.Imagine yourself as the person responsible for hiring someone to fill a creative position. You have piles of plain, boring resumes sitting on your desk or in your email inbox. Sure, one of them might have used an icon here or a line there, maybe some bolder colors, but for the most part, resumes all look the same, superficially.Then you come across a resume that’s bursting with creativity. It’s unique, it showcases the talents of the person who sent it along with their personality, and it tells you that this person is self-motivated and not afraid to take chances or do something unexpected. That person is likely going to get an interview, at least, even if their qualifications aren’t absolutely ideal.The same thing goes for freelancers who are trying to appeal to potential clients. If your “about” or “resume” page is the same text-based affair as everyone else’s, you’re going to blend in with everyone else. But if you do something unique and different, something that represents you and your talents, you’re more likely to get a call from those prospects.The bottom line is that while a creative resume won’t necessarily land you your dream job, it can get you a foot in the door that might not have otherwise opened for you.

Start with a Regular Resume

The first thing you’ll need to do is a create a plain vanilla resume. This should list all the important information about your experience and career. Even though creative resumes often include lots of information not commonly found on a regular resume, you’ll still need to include at least basic information about your work experience and education, as well as your relevant skills.From there, you’ll want to create a separate list of other skills and experience that might not be included on a standard resume. This can include things like hobbies or interests outside of your profession, as well as more creative things (like special ninja skills).

Real-World vs. Virtual

You’ve got to decide if you want your resume to exist in just the virtual world or if you also want to create print copies. To some extent, this depends on how you want to use your resume. If you’re looking for a traditional full-time job, you’ll almost certainly need print versions of your resume. If it’s mostly for landing freelance jobs, though, you can probably get away with just having it online.

Why Not Both?

Of course, you can always have your resume available in both formats. This makes particular sense if you’re on the lookout for a full-time job and are networking heavily to find one. Rather than carrying around a stack of resumes, you can just carry around business cards with the URL of your online resume. It cuts down on paper and makes it easier to give your info to people who might be able to hire you.At the same time, having printed resumes available for those who request them is also a good idea when engaging in a traditional job search. A lot of companies (even creative ones) still want paper resumes to look through when making hiring decisions.

Design Considerations

If you’re going to have both print and online versions of your resume, you’ll probably want to have some sort of consistent design theme between the two. This is fine, but remember that in the world of print design, there are certain conventions you’ll need to adhere to.First you have to decide if you want to have your resumes professionally printed or if you’ll be printing them off on your own laser or inkjet printer. If the former, you’ll have a bit more leeway. Four-color printing has come down in price significantly in recent years, meaning that a full-color resume, including bleeds, won’t cost you too much as long as you’re having at least a few hundred copies printed.If you’re going to print off your own resumes, you’ll want to check what your printer is capable of. Can it print without margins? If not, how large do the margins need to be? How does it do with big blocks of solid colors? You may want to run a few tests to see how different design elements work before committing to anything in particular.As far as your virtual resume goes, make sure you have the technical skills to create the kind of resume you want. Also take into account context. If you’re applying for a job as a Flash designer, you’ll definitely want to create a Flash-based resume. If you’re applying for a job as a graphic designer, you’ll want to make sure your resume has plenty of good graphics work included, beyond just your portfolio.

Think of a Theme

You’ll want some kind of theme to base your resume design around. If you have a particular area of expertise or a strong interest in a particular area, then that might be the best idea for your resume. Think about how the design of the resume itself can show off what you’re capable of.Themes can be something very general, like “grunge” or “colorful” if that’s the kind of design you like to do, or you can go more specialized. There are tons of interesting themes out there, including this one:Using something as familiar as Facebook for your resume design shows creativity without having to design something from scratch. It’s a great idea for non-designers who still want a creative resume: take something familiar and customize it to show of your particular skills.Here’s another great example of a resume built around a theme:The overall design is an infographic that shows off the designer’s skills and experience in a visual manner. It’s creative and different, and shows off what the designer is capable of.And here’s another one, this time in the style of RPG character sheet:

Dare to Be Different

Differentiating your resume from all the others your potential employer might be considering is what will get you an interview (and maybe even a job). Because creative resumes are becoming more popular, it’s harder to stand out. This is why personalization is key.Don’t be afraid to try something different, whether it’s online or in a physical resume. There are thousands of ways you can create a resume that stands out. For example, here’s a resume that’s based on a Soviet-era Service Booklet:Here’s another example, this time a template for creating a 3D box with the resume written on the sides:Not many people would think to create a resume printed on fabric rather than paper. This one is complete with stitching details:Color sample books are another unique design idea:

How Are You Different?

If you’re trying to come up with ideas on something completely different for your resume, think about how you’re different from others who might be applying for the same position. Then figure out how to best showcase those differences. For someone with a varied background, an infographic might work well. For someone else who has a tight specialty in one thing or another, the design should showcase that particular skill very well.If you’re still at a loss for ideas, look at the things around you: in your home, in your car, in your office. Look for themes there, and then think about how you could use those in your resume.

25 More Examples of Awesome Creative Resumes

Grunge-style elements are popular in creative resumes, which makes it harder to stand out. This one does a nice job of it, though.Official LinkA unique idea that is reminiscent of an old album cover.Official Link

Official LinkA fantastic example of a minimalist resume that’s still very creative.Official LinkA very professional, clean-looking resume.Official LinkA simple design with a beautifully understated color scheme.Official LinkThis is an outstanding example of how injecting personality into your resume can really make it stand out.Official LinkIncluding the icons of programs you’re experienced with is a great way to enhance your resume.Official LinkAnother infographic resume.Official LinkCreative resumes aren’t just restricted to web and graphic designers.Official LinkA very bold black and white resume design.Official LinkAnother simple but impactfull resume design, this time with a different take in the wording.Official LinkA fun, comic-strip style resume is something that stands out. The black and white color scheme also makes it very suitable to print.Official LinkA bright red resume stands out.Official LinkAn interesting take on the traditional CV, with a scientific anatomy theme.Official LinkThis is a completely unique approach, and very visually interesting.Official LinkA bold design with a mostly-neutral color scheme.Official LinkA grungy, notepaper style resume with a ton of detail.Official LinkA simple resume with a beautiful color scheme and interesting background design.Official LinkJust adding a background texture and changing the orientation of the text can make a huge impact.Official Link

This blog was created byELO DESIGNERto share his wealth of knowledge and researches with other designers and design lovers, to give them guidance and inspiration. Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Thank you.Followmy daily design links onTwitter or Add meon your social network.

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Thursday

Finishing is a process applied to a design’s substrate, or surface, that can provide your work with a specific look and feel, add decorative elements, alter its shape and size or provide functionality and presentation enhancements. Finishes can transform an ordinary design into something much more interesting and unique.

Below is a list of 8 various printing finishes (with images and links) that can be applied to your designs:

Varnishes

A varnish is a colorless coating that can both protect the substrate from wear-and-tear and enhance the look and feel of a design, or specific elements of the design (referred to as a spot varnish), with a glossy, dull or satin finish. Most magazine covers that you buy likely have a varnish applied to them — like the smooth, slippery-like texture that you feel on most magazine covers.

Die cutting is when the shape of the paper is altered or areas are cut out to enhance the visual purpose of the design. Often die cuts are used to see beyond a page and onto the proceeding one.

Folds

Throw out Fold

A throw out fold allows extra space within a set sized publication. Think of the monthly centerfold image in Playboy magazine for a second (I swear I read them for the articles!) — the magazine, with its two-facing pages, allows the centerfold to be a larger (taking up 3 pages) by utilizing the throw out. The “third” page is folded over the second allowing it to fit within the two-facing pages.

Gatefold

Much like the throw out fold provides a third page to fit within a two-page spread, the gatefold allows a forth page. The left and right panels are folded inward and meet at the spine.

French fold

The french fold is an eight-page fold (4 front and 4 back panels) from a single sheet of paper that creates two right angles to each other. Most often used in invitations and announcements.

The Accordion fold

Folds that go in opposite direction to make save space and fit more content into a smaller whole. Most music CD inserts use this technique.

Roll fold

A piece of paper folded that has two or more parallel folds that fold in on each other. It may fold in from the left or right. To allow proper nesting of panels that fold in, inside panels are usually incrementally smaller than outer panels with the inside end panel being the smallest.

Embossing (above the surface) and debossing (below the surface) is a stamping technique in which particular elements are three-dimensional and textured. This technique can be accomplished with or without (blind) the use of ink or foil.

Foil Stamping

Foil stamping, which is the process of pressing colored foil onto a substrate with a heated die, can add texture and elegance to a design. It can also be used as a mirror to show reflections adding to the overall effect of a printed piece.

Deckle Edge

More-or-less a paper treatment, as the edge or edges of the substrate is torn giving it a ragged, decorative look. If you’ve had any printmaking classes, you might be familiar with Rag paper; rag paper is high-quality paper that leaves the papermaking machine with is torn edges left as is.

Fore-edge printing

Printing technique applied to the outside edges of a publication that can give the appearance of color, display words, or create texture (ie: gold or silver).

Perforation

A ‘half-cut’ that allows parts of a substrate to be easily removed.

Remember, it is important to plan from the beginning if you would like to use any of these finishing techniques, contact your printer beforehand to fill them in with what you like to accomplish. Every printers will require you to setup your files differently to ensure the desired finish is accurate. Also, not every printer has the necessary tools to fit your “specialty” needs, while others outsource finishing options.

If you looking for a good online printer that will be able to assist you in the above finishes, I can attest to Jakprints. They provide a variety of services including laminating, binding, folding, perforation, varnishes, die cutting and custom embroidery and have always done a great job for me.

This blog was created byELO DESIGNERto share his wealth of knowledge and researches with other designers and design lovers, to give them guidance and inspiration. Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Thank you.Followmy daily design links onTwitter or Add meon your social network.

Proportion is usually unnoticed until something is out of proportion. When the relative size of two elements being compared seems wrong or out of balance it is said to be “out of proportion”. For example if a person has a head larger than his entire body, then we would say that it is out of proportion. Most of the time, we can only value proportion when we see designs or things which look distorted and are therefore not pleasing to the eyes. The human body is the most universal standard of measurement. Things in nature are also used as basis in proportioning. Designs and other stuff that doesn’t arrive with these standards may look ugly in the eyes of many. In architecture and interior design, we consider proportions in creating spaces between rooms and furniture. We do not use a big chandelier in a small dining room. We also do not use a very huge door for a mere bathroom. This is done this way to make the designs look friendlier and more comfortable.

Hence, every designer will try to make his works proportionate in order to satisfy himself, his clients and those who look at his designs. In this article, we will give you a few tips on how to make your designs look better by using proportions.

1.Use the Golden Ratio.

When we speak of proportions, the Golden Ratio is usually used. The Golden Ratio is also sometimes called the golden section, golden mean, golden number, divine proportion, divine section and golden proportion. The golden ratio (symbol is the Greek letter “phi”)is a special number approximately equal to 1.61803398874989484820… (and so on). It appears many times in geometry, art, architecture and other areas.It is called “golden” because it is said that whenever the phi value is used, the outcome is the most aesthetically pleasing design. The golden ration was used in the Parthenon, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the Great Pyramids of Giza and many other artistic works.For designers, you may want to use the golden ration in your works. Take a look at Wes Pack ‘s tutorial on Using the new Divine Proportion tool in CorelDraw.Below is what we call the phi bar. It is shown how the golden ratio is used by dividing the entire length of a and b with the width a which is equal to phi or 1.618 which is also equal if we divide the shorter length b with the width a. Of course, the width and the longer length is of the same distance. Remember, we are speaking of proportion here.

Below are more examples where in the golden ratio is being used. We can see the human hand bones, the pyramid, the golden rectangle and other art works based on this proportion tool. For you to have a more in depth information, you can find sources at the end of this article wherein you can gain more explanation about the divine proportion.

2.Use the body and face tutorial.

It is said that the basis for proportion is the human’s body and those found in nature. Some artists are having a hard time to think if their work is really proportioned or not. Take a look at the picture below and use it as a guide in making proportioned bodies and faces.

3.Consider the relationship of one element to the size of another element.

In making designs, sizes vary. The sizes of the elements we use make our work proportional. Consider the advertising poster below as an example which made use of this principle. The huge leaf was being carried by ants. Of course, ants are smaller and the leaf is bigger. Other than the size of the elememts, we can also observe that what makes the design proportional is the number of ants carrying the leaf. If only one ant carried the huge leaf, then it is not proportional.

4.Consider the height, width and depth of one element to another element.

Aside from sizes, we also look into an element’s height, width and depth. The poster below shows a tall big jar. Inside it are of course tall type characters which gave emphasis that they were inside the jar while the type in smaller size seems like merely printed on the surface of the jar.There are actually many ways in applying this principle especially when you deal with tall or long objects. There is a tendency for long elements to look smaller on the farther part and bigger on the nearer area.

5. Similar elements together.

It is always a principle that similar elements should be placed together. Hence, in considering proportions, elements similar in character and elements which have a common feature should be put together. The design below shows a woamn wearing a pink blouse with square pattern prints. Blue squares in different tones overlay the blouse. On the other side, a flower whose petals are given emphasis thorugh thin lines is shown.Thus, thin lines were also used to overlay it. As we can see, squares were combined with squares and thin lines with thin lines.

6.Make areas in your design.Areas are essential parts of a design.

Make use of areas that are not monotonous. Use major and minor areas to make a better output. The figure below shows the difference of using a bad and good proportion when we speak of areas.View Source

7.Give a dynamic eye direction in using areas.

Spaces should be arranged in a manner not composing or halves, quarters, thirds, etc. Make your designs more dynamic by giving direction to the eyes but still creating a relationship between the areas. A page layout shown below is done in a manner that it won’t look boring to the readers. Instead of perfectly dividing the page into halves of thirds, the layout artist made irregular sizes of the areas and even inclined the entire layout. This is a smart and creative way of layouting.

8.Consider the relationship of size of one area to the size of another area.

In using areas, as mentioned in number 5, we need to make use of major and minor spaces. In this manner, we will be able to consider the differences of the sizes of areas. We have to be careful not to make too much difference in areas for this will make them unrelated. Big difference in areas may also ruin the harmony of a design. In the web design below, you can see that the designer used various area sizes. This is an effective way of separating some of the parts like the smaller colored rectangles on the top which signifies the menu while the parts that go together were placed in one area. But despite that, we could still see the whole design is together and in harmony with each other.

9.Use harmony.

Harmony is an agreement between the shapes that stresses the similarities of all parts. We have to make sure that shapes fit in its proper positions and spaces adjoining other elements in the design. The business card shown below used shapes whose harmony was maintained because of its usage of lines and curves. Though they come in different colors, they still fit together.

10.Used to determine distance.

The use of proportion is also important in determining if the elements are near or far from each other. It shows a sense of isolation. This way, we are considering the amount of spaces between two or more elements. The advertising poster below shows a mountain which is far from the man. This is obvious because the man is larger than the mountain and the letters on top of the mountain are also smaller. This is how we deal with elements if we want it to appear near or far. Nearer objects are bigger while farther ones are smaller.

Sometimes, it might not be easy to use proportion especially if we try to stick with the rules. But we don’t really have to compute everything so that it will be equal to phi. By merely looking at our works, we could easily determine if it is proportioned or not by comparing them to the things in nature or the human body. When you work on a project, keep in mind that proportioned outputs look more pleasing. Though, some people choose to use distortions which is another form of art.For now, before you try distorting, try working with proportions first. More people can actually appreciate proportions for it is what their eyes are used to look at.Artists and designers out there will surely agree that proportion-as a principle in design- is truly very much important to come up with a totally great project!

This blog was created byELO DESIGNERto share his wealth of knowledge and researches with other designers and design lovers, to give them guidance and inspiration. Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Thank you.Followmy daily design links onTwitter or Add meon your social network.

You probably want to know a little more about the ads. Well, these include famous brands such as Budweiser, Pontiac, Ford, Mars, Motorola, Lucky Strike, Schlitz or 7 Up. And most of them are really clever! So read their slogans carefully! Nevertheless, I don’t know if you are a Mad Men fan, but if you are, you certainly shouldn’t miss Lucky Strike’s ad “It’s toasted!”. Now, I hope that you’ll enjoy, be inspired and if you’ll like this article then please share it with your friends or community! Many thanks! Cheers!

Schlitz tastes so good (1951)

Austin Healey Sprite

Enjoy Today’s MODERN … Today’s NEW … RC” (1955)

Niblets (1950)

7Up (1954)

Canada Dry (1950)

Lucky Strike “It’s Toasted!” (1956)

Texaco Fire Chief (1951)

Slugger McGee (1952)

New Wonder Drugs – “Serve Yourself” (1955)

Budweiser – “Noon, at Last” (1951)

RC Makes You Feel Like New! (1952)

Pontiac

Zenith- “From 16 To 78 RPM” (1950)

Lionel Trains for Xmas (1951)

Rowntree’s Fruit Gums (1954)

Sweeping Lines (1956)

Mars Candy (1957)

Ford (1950)

Motorola’s Standout Picture

This blog was created byELO DESIGNERto share his wealth of knowledge and researches with other designers and design lovers, to give them guidance and inspiration. Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Thank you.Followmy daily design links onTwitter or Add meon your social network.